There are four basic criteria that you can search by: Keyword, Time Span, Location, and Event.
The Keyword search will find the type of data product you are looking for. For example, you can type in 'Ocean' for the keyword field and you will get back a list of data products containing data pertaining to oceans. Some other possible keywords could be an Instrument name such as 'Modis', or a satellite name such as 'Terra', or parameters such as 'Geolocation' or 'Radiation', or data product shortnames such as 'OMTO3'. The keyword field is required to retrieve any results for your search.
The Time Span search will filter your keyword search to data products that have data within the time span you specify. The time span can be specified in any unambiguous date format (i.e. 'Sept 1 2005' to 'Sept 2 2005', or '10/1/05' to '10/4/05', etc.). So if you want cloud reflectance data between 10-1-2005 and 10-4-2005, your search parameters could be 'cloud reflectance' for keyword, and '10-1-2005' to '10-4-2005' for time span. The time span field is NOT required, and will have a default value from 'Jan 1 1978' to the current date.
The Location search will filter your keyword search to data products that have data over the location you specify. The location can be specified by the name of the area you are looking for (i.e. 'Kansas', 'Tokyo Bay') or by the geographic coordinates of that location in the form '(minLat,minLon),(maxLat,maxLon)'. Mirador recognizes many conventional formats for specifying a location (i.e. 5N 15S 12E 4W). To tie this together with the keyword search: if you want Geolocation data over Kansas during 2005, your search paramaters would be 'geolocation' for keyword, 'Kansas' for location, and 'Jan 1 2005' to 'Dec 31 2005' for time span. The location field is NOT required, and will default to 'Worldwide' if it is left blank.
The Event search will allow you to refine your keyword search to data pertaining to a certain geographical event. For example, if you want data relating to Hurricane Katrina, you can enter 'Katrina' into the event field, and it will return data covering Hurricane Katrina. If you specify a Location and Time Span along with an event, it will find occurrences of that event during that time span covering that location. So for example, if a user wants AIRS Air Quality data over Maryland for Jan 1 2005 to Feb 1 2005, they would enter 'Airs' for the keyword, 'Maryland' for the location, 'Ozone' for the event, and 'Jan 1 2005' to 'Feb 1 2005' for the time span. Like the time span and location fields, the Event field is optional.
If you want geolocation data over Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina between Aug 28 2005 and Aug 30 2005, your search parameters would be 'geolocation' for keyword, 'Aug 28 2005' to 'Aug 30 2005' for time span, 'new orleans' for location, and 'katrina' for event.